


Sorrowful Angels

by aderyn



Series: Deep Map [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Home, Rooftops, squad rooms, statuary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The city's love is unrequited. (Or no, it isn't, but how's a city to know?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sorrowful Angels

**Author's Note:**

> [Beautiful cover by Hamstermoon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/941782)

The city’s love is unrequited. Or no, it isn’t, but how‘s a city to know? How are the squares, the spires, the rooftops, the chimneys, the bells, the statues of the sorrowful (joyful) angels under the weathervane at Regent’s to know they’re loved secretly, silently, without a wink or a sign, by the madman of Marylebone?

Look closer and you’d see it.

*******

If they'd told John, when he went off to medical school, or even to war, that he’d one day be considering what it might be like to shove his flatmate up against a wall and hold him there, not because he’s high or bleeding or in need of a talking-to or a talking-down (although those things are  possible) but just because he wants to look at him standing still under the stony, mournful eye of the sword -woman of the Smithfield market--he would have said they were mad.

*******

“Do you love your work?” John says.  Lestrade ‘s half-listening .  There’s a quarter of a sweet bun on his desk and a bell outside. They’re hanging fire at 5 AM, waiting on evidence, yawning.

 “Do you love it?” John says, “Because I think I need to know.”

“I need it,” Sherlock says.  ( _But you’re another matter_.)

*******

Slip of a Sunday morning, where the dragonslayer broods over the Abbey, the Queen of Time waits on her Sunday shoppers , the  pigeons pick at  last night’s accidents, the rays pick out the brasses of Baker--

The bells of  St. Martin’s, chiming, _wanted_. The bells of St. Clement’s, chiming _, loved_.

**Author's Note:**

> The angels of Regent's Park, the sword woman of Smithfield meat market, the slayer of creatures at Westminster Abbey, the Queen of Time in her Ship of Commerce at Selfridges: [ The beautiful rooftop statuary of London](http://knowledgeoflondon.com/rooftops.html)
> 
>  
> 
> [Beautiful snowy weeping angel, credit R. Kenyon](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/wszHtEnNBrP_VDrQ_xnzPdMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=embedwebsite)  
> [The sword-woman of the Smithfield market, credit R. Kenyon](https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/VZFPphnlVjMrB1B2__YTmtMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink)


End file.
